Jordan Mattox

Here’s what I got through last month, all fiction this month, minus A Small Place and the massive histories that I am slowly plodding through:

1. The Tombs of Atuan Ursula K. Le Guin

Last month, I read the first book in this series called The Wizard of Earthsea and loved it. The second volume introduces a new setting and some new characters and the return of Ged, the wizard from the first volume, later on in the book. The plot follows a young girl named Tenar who is selected to become the high priestess and guardian of the mysterious and ominous Tombs of Atuan because she was born the same night that the previous priestess died. Ged tries to infiltrate the Tombs in order to steal the treasure hidden at the center of a dark labyrinth, causing Tenar’s world to implode. Le Guin is one of the most incredible world builders I’ve read and perhaps her greatest strength is telling you just enough so you are grounded there, but leaves enough out to retain the mystery. Highly recommended! 

2. Passing Nella Larsen 

It’s a testament to the influence and power of Larsen as a novelist even though she only published two novels: this one (which is more novella than novel) and Quicksand, along with a number of short stories. Netflix made a beautiful adaptation with some of the best actors a few years ago, which I only watched recently. Larsen’s physical language and universe she creates draws you viscerally into the foreground issue of pigment while simultaneously absorbing you into the universe of racism and the borders, while somewhat opaque, that divide racial groups in this period. She is such a beautiful stylist, which emerges both in the dialogue, but also when the camera pans out. I would recommend this and then watching Netflix’s adaptation for the maximum experience. 

3. The Lost Daughter: A Novel Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein 

A friend reached out just this week asking for fiction recommendations and Ferrante’s neapolitan quartet was my first recommendation. When I finished the fourth book and had to say goodbye to the characters (until I do a reread), I experienced what can best be described as literary grief. This novella, also excellently adapted by Netflix starring Olive Colman, which just goes to show that writing (ahem, the strike) really makes the biggest difference when it comes to film and TV, revolves around a similar universe of mother and daughter issues.  The Italian protagonist is a middle aged woman with two grown children who live with her ex-husband in Canada. She vacations on an island, where she encounters a young mother and daughter, which causes her to have an emotional reaction that leads to her stealing the daughter’s doll. The adaptation is interesting because you get less of the internal dialogue and flashbacks, which allows Olivia Colman to be, something that she is world class at, an enigma. I actually watched the adaptation first. It’s not clear to me which is the right to experience the pair, but, whatever you choose, consume both please. 

4. Party Going Henry Green 

I found this book as a recommendation from one of my favorite sections of the NY Times book review called By The Book, where authors, academics, celebrities, politicians, and others share the things that they read. Green was described as the writer’s writer’s writer and the novel as mostly devoid of plot. Quite a selling point. The premise is simple: a group of rich socialites in early 20th century England have their train delayed and are forced to wait in some hotel room adjacent to the station. The power of the novel is the dynamics between the group and their dialogue back and forth. The writing is of the highest caliber, even though sections of this novel, in my opinion, are uneven. I can see why the book carries the reputation that it does, but it is not a light reading experience by any means. 

5. Norwegian Wood Haruki Murakami

This novel was recommended as a first foray into the works of Murakami. While most of his work has a science fiction element, this book is a more traditional coming of age and love story. The book follows Toru, a college student living in Tokyo in the 1960’s, and his relationship with two women, Naoko and Midori. Naoko, who is struggling with mental health issues following a family tragedy, lives in a mountain medical facility that Toru visits throughout the novel. Midori, by contrast, while also wrestling with personal tragedies, is constantly on the move and assertive, providing a contrast with Naoko. The descriptions of the Japanese landscape and beautiful erotic sequences are mesmerizing. I absolutely devoured this novel and am already starting my next Murakami. 

6. A Small Place Jamaica Kincaid 

This small work is an essay of sorts that reflects on the effects of colonialism on the island of Antigua. Kincaid has published a number of novels and nonfiction and is currently a professor at Harvard. The rage seething through is short at the corruption and degradation of her home can felt on every page. Her insight into what makes this world tick and why is brilliant and devastating. One reviewer on the back of the book refers to this as jeremiad and I agree: there is definitely a feel of old testament prophets pulsing here. 

1. A Wizard of Earthsea (The Earthsea Cycle, Book 1) Ursula K. Le Guin 

Most people from my generation (mid-range millennials) grew up with Harry Potter and believed (wrongly, in my view) that J.K. Rowling’s (Tolkien’s series too) were the height of fantasy. For most of them (myself included), Harry Potter was the only fantasy series that we read. There is, however, a huge world of fantasy that has not broken mainstream that makes Harry Potter, even at its height, seem to exist in a lower league, both in the depth of ideas and the quality of the writing. This first book in Le Guin’s series may be one of the most enigmatic fantasies I’ve read and beautiful in the way it stretches your imagination. It is also from my understanding one of the first, if not the first books, to include a magic school. The story is complicated and not worth trying to summarize here, but worth diving into if you are looking for a new world to explore with one of our great science fiction and fantasy writers. 

2. Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land Jacob Mikanowski

Eastern Europe has just become a catchall for a place that people in the US understand little about. The war in Ukraine, however, has brought this region to the forefront of people’s minds, but, besides Russia, most of us probably couldn’t name any of Ukraine’s neighbors. Mikanowski is Polish, but grew up in the US. This book is part regional and family history, travel book, and a love letter to a perennially misunderstood part of the world. What I certainly walked away from this book understanding is how diverse Eastern Europe is and a general curiosity to explore peoples, cultures, and nations. Highly recommended. 

3. Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self Andrea Wulf

I loved Wulf’s book about Alexander von Humboldt, the great scientist and explorer who invented our concept of nature. This book is an outgrowth of that book exploring the scientists, philosophers, poets, and generally creative people who collided at the University of Jena, some of whose names you would likely recognize, like Goethe, and others, like Caroline Schlegel, you might not. It was at the revolutionarily open-minded University of Jena that all of these individuals, through mutual pollination and dialogue created Romanticism, the philosophical and artistic school of thought. The book is less about the ideas behind the school of thought and more about the lives of the people who made it. Highly recommended.    

4. Indigenous Continents: The Epic for North America Pekka Hämäläinen

Hämäläinen has written two books about about two of the more influential tribes/empire in the indigenous, the Lakota and the Comanche, and this book is a crystallization of his career studying the indigenous landscape of North America. The thesis of the book is that until very recently, North America was an indigenous continent, where Native Americans set the course of events. This an attempt to counter the narrative of the “passive Native” who was swept up in the storm of European colonialism and imperialism. Instead, through Hämäläinen’s narrative of the events, we see negotiation between groups competing for resources and space. The amount of detail is, at points, overwhelming and breathtaking. This will be the definitive book on the indigenous encounters with Europeans for a long time to come. 

5. The Lathe of Heaven Ursula K. Le Guin 

My library ordered this novella and I will be teaching it for our Academic Decathlon team next week. The story follows George Orr, a man living in a dystopian future, whose dreams can change reality. The power cripples him and sees a therapist to try to address the issue. The therapist sees his problem and power as an opportunity, and uses hypnosis and some kind of dream machine to control what Orr dreams. The book is fascinating on multiple levels, philosophically and emotionally. Like all books like this, there are a lot of twists and turns which leave you reeling and just trying to catch up. Combine that genre with a technician like Le Guin, you have a recipe for a mesmerizing story. 

6.  Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston 

Hurston was a part of the movement called the Harlem Renaissance and this is perhaps her most famous of her four novels. The story follows Janie Crawford, who returns to her hometown in forties, and recounts her life story, which is a journey of awakening in midst a world of violent gender roles. The writing dips in and out of sublime transcendence at will and her attention to detail of the vernacular is mesmerizing–and also quite difficult to read, which I view as a virtue because it forces you to slow down. 

Reading This Week:

Delusions of Détente: Why America and China Will Be Enduring Rivals

Foreign Affairs

By Michael Beckley

Interesting perspective on why we need to take a hard line with China and why well-intentioned diplomacy is not going to have much of a positive impact.

Watching This Week:

Just coming across this divisive film. Whenever a film is a highly regarded internationally and Roger Ebert pans it, I’m signed up! Don’t have concrete thoughts to share just yet.

Listening This Week:

Víkingur Ólafsson – Bach: Goldberg Variations

Ólafsson is probably my favorite pianist recording today and he just released his Goldberg Variations. The hype was warranted!

1. The Dispossessed Ursula K. Le Guin

This one has been staring at me from my bookshelf for a while and finally picked it up this month. Left Hand of Darkness, which has incredibly prescient discussions of gender and sexuality for a novel published in 1969, left a big impression on me. This novel also had that kind of impact. The story takes place between two societies, one individualistic and capitalistic and one communal and seemingly utopian (at first). Between these two worlds is Shevek, a scientist from the communal world, who ventures to the individualistic world in order to learn, bridge the divide, and enhance his scientific career. There’s a lot going on here and to unpack. Highly recommended. 

2. Springtime: A Ghost Story Michelle De Kretser

Picked up this strange little novella on a whim just browsing the stacks. The story centers on Francis who meets Charlie, who is married with a son, at a party in Melbourne. The affair leads them to move to Sydney, a starkly different city with a more tropical climate. The story is full of mysteries and mirages, including a strangely ghost-like woman that Francis sees in a garden while she is walking her dog. This one probably needs a reread to catch everything going on in this subtle little book. 

3. Paradais Fernanda Melchor 

I loved Melchor’s book Hurricane Season, which is a strange verb to use given the content and language used in that novel. This story follows the friendship of two teenagers, Franco and Polo, the former a rich tourist in Paradais and the latter a groundskeeper, who is trying to escape his life of poverty and horrible family situation. The narrative centers around Franco’s obsession with an older woman, which ultimately leads to his destruction, and Polo’s temptation to follow his cousin into organized crime. Extremely graphic and fascinating novel. Melchor is the Cormac McCarthy of our generation!

4. Death in Venice  Thomas Mann 

This was Mann’s most famous work, until he published Magic Mountain, which garnered attention and reevaluation of a lot of his work. The novel is controversial because it centers the obsession of an older man on a teenage boy. The older man is an aging novelist who has entered creative decline and decided to abscond to Venice to breathe different air and perhaps reignite his creativity. Upon arriving, he discovers a boy visiting with his Polish family to be an idealized vision beauty. The older man is meant to represent decadence, but he also has connections to Mann himself. Towards the end of the novel, plague arrives and so does the denouement.  A lot to unpack and can only do so much in this blurb. 

5. Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught In Between Eric Nusbaum 

I interviewed Eric for my history of California podcast and couldn’t help but gush about how much I loved this story. Nusbaum spins a complex web of stakeholders, immigrants, idealist public housing advocates, corrupt newspapers, and more to explain how it happened that three neighborhoods were demolished in order to build a baseball stadium. More than baseball, you learn a lot about the history of Los Angeles and the connections between Mexico and baseball, how the red scare brought an end to a public housing project, and the complexity of trying to assign blame. Highly recommended. 

I’ve started and stopped this Danish political drama a number of times, but last week a bug knocked me out for 24 hours and was finally able to sit down and get into this show. I will say that it is worth the price of admission here. The first 2-3 episodes set up the show and then each episode, while doing character development, has a theme around issues of power or cultural conflicts. The episodes deal with these issues in mature ways and are not afraid use words like colonialism. Sometimes the problems seem quaint given the size of Denmark (for example, one episode focuses on how much the government should spend on a single war plane), but overall worth spending the time with this one.

I got this from a Cowen link. The post is about people in the Effective Altruism community. The author is encouraging them to pick something specific and boring–you might add obscure as well–to become and expert in order to understand points of leverage. Here’s the explanation:

I sometimes get a vibe that many people trying to ambitiously do good in the world (including EAs) are misguided about what doing successful policy/governance work looks like. An exaggerated caricature would be activities like: dreaming up novel UN structures, spending time in abstract game theory and ‘strategy spirals^[1]’, and sweeping analysis of historical case studies.

Instead, people that want to make the world safer with policy/governance should become experts on very specific and boring topics. One of the most successful people I’ve met in biosecurity got their start by getting really good at analyzing obscure government budgets.

Here are some crowdsourced example areas I would love to see more people become experts in:

• Legal liability – obviously relevant to biosecurity and AI safety, and I’m especially interested in how liability law would handle spreading infohazards (e.g. if a bio lab publishes a virus sequence that is then used for bioterrorism, or if an LLM is used maliciously in a similar way).
• Privacy / data protection laws – could be an important lever for regulating dangerous technologies. 
• Executive powers for regulation – what can and can’t the executive actually do to get AI labs to adhere to voluntary security standards, or get DNA synthesis appropriately monitored? 
• Large, regularly reauthorized bills (e.g., NDAA, PAHPA, IAA) and ways in which they could be bolstered for biosecurity and AI safety (both in terms of content and process).
• How companies validate customers, e.g., for export control or FSAP reasons (know-your-customer), and the statutes and technologies around this.
• How are legal restrictions on possessing or creating certain materials justified/implemented e.g. Chemical Weapons Convention, narcotics, Toxic Substances Control Act? 
• The efficacy of tamper-proof and tamper-evident technology (e.g. in voting machines, anti-counterfeiting printers)
• Biochemical supply chains – which countries make which reagents, and how are they affected by export controls and other trade policies?
• Consumer protection laws and their application to emerging tech risks (e.g. how do product recalls work? Could they apply to benchtop DNA synthesizers or LLMs?)
• Patent law – can companies patent dangerous technology in order to prevent others from developing or misusing it?
• How do regulations on 3d-printed firearms work?
• The specifics of congressional appropriations, federal funding, and procurement: what sorts of things does the government purchase, how does this relate to biotech or AI (software)? Related to this, becoming an expert on the Strategic National Stockpile and understanding the mechanisms of how a vendor managed inventory could work.

In thinking about something boring and specific I am interested in understanding better would be water legislation and water markets in California. I recorded a podcast with the WET Center at Fresno State and we discussed the influence water traders and water markets. The world is a complex, boring, specific, and perfectly relevant to me as a resident of the Central Valley!

1. War and Peace Volumes III & IV Leo Tolstoy 

There certainly came a feeling of accomplishment finishing what is often considered the long book of long books. I won’t deny that this required a lot of patience and perseverance at points, but most of the time was spent absorbed in the world of the Napoleonic Wars. Tolstoy is as much a psychologist as he is a novelist. His characters climb off the page and crawl deep into your mind. One element that I didn’t realize would be a large feature of this book is Tolstoy’s philosophical reflections on history. He spends pages and pages critiquing the great man theory of history: the idea the important men move the historical ball down the field. Should this book be on people’s bucket lists? Maybe, maybe not? I am a big believer that you should read what you want, but I also don’t think all books are equal. Read good books that interest you. This is a good book, but it may not interest you. If you are a Tolstoy virgin, I would recommend beginning with Anna Karenina and if you enjoy that, pick this one up. 

2. Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World Maryanne Wolf 

Heard about Wolf through a podcast and devoured this book. Wolf is a literacy scholar at UCLA and a thoughtful critic in a world where reading has transformed so dramatically in the last twenty years. This book unpacks the challenges and opportunities with reading on screens. She is neither a pessimist or an optimist, but realistic that it is hurting our reading minds, but also is not going away. She wants us to think about digital and analog as two languages and the goal is to be bilingual, using digital for certain tasks, but emphasizing physical books as much as possible.

3. Obata’s Yosemite: Art and Letters of Obata from His Trip to the High Sierra in 1927 Chiura Obata

Obata is someone that is little known in California, but lived a fascinating life and is one of the influential visual artists in the state’s history. After immigrating from Japan, he fell in love with the landscape of California, and Yosemite in particular. This book is a collection of essays about his life and art and some beautiful letters he wrote to his wife while he was exploring the high Sierras.

4. California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric–and What It Means for America’s Power Grid Katherine Blunt 

I interviewed Blunt for my California history podcast. The book combines history and true crime, a corporate version, and description of how capitalism and climate have fueled the time bomb that is PG&E. If you live in California, you need to read this book for so many reasons. 

I enjoyed Fernandes first album and in this one he explores the work of the German master and the rich musical culture that is Brazil. I found myself getting lost as his fingers glided across the strings.

Sufjan was a major part of my adolescence and did not count myself a fan as he made his electronic transition. This album, and mind you I have just listened to one song, seems to have return to original form.

Tal and her partner Andreas Groethuysen covers three preludes from Frederick Delius, which have the characteristic moods and atmospheres of the late romantic vibes in classical music and some impressionistic elements; Two Pieces by Josepph Achron, who was described by Schoenberg as one of the most underrated modern composers; and many other beautiful small selections. Really enjoyed this album and the light touch of two of the best technicians.

Sadly, I missed seeing this in theaters. It’s as beautiful as any of Wes Anderson’s films, but I found the through line of the plot lacking–which I suppose may be a criticism that you could lodge at a number of his films. The film is really just series of beautifully constructed vignettes. Not in my top tier of Wes Anderson’s films, but I will likely watch it again to absorb the palette and find the, likely, many things I missed.

I pulled this one from Scott Sumner’s amazing lists and reviews. It may be one of the, if not the, greatest war film ever made. It oscillates between strange and horrifying, which is likely a more accurate picture of what WWII was like for combatants and non-combatants alike. The film takes place in Belarus as the Nazis move through it to Russia and shows how, in graphic reconstructions, they decimated hundreds of towns. Horrifying to watch, but, given how little exposure Americans have to what happened on the Eastern Front, important nonetheless.

I really enjoyed this strange little film. Aside from the prologue of Wallace Shawn’s character walking to the restaurant and the ending with him in a cab, the film is essentially a record of a conversation between two friends who haven’t seen each other in years. While their conversation is winding and discursive, the subject is essentially about how the find meaning in their lives. As boring as this sounds as a logline for a movie, I was mesmerized. Highly recommended.

George Walker passed away in 2018 and left a massive legacy in a the world of classical music. He was the first in many domains in classical music: first African American to gradate from Oberlin, get a doctoral degree from Eastman, and to win a Pulitzer Prize for his song cycle Lilacs. This composition is emotionally evocative, simple and direct, and powerful.

I have absolutely loved everything the Ruisi Quartet has produced and this new release is no exception. Haydn in all his glorious melodies is on full display here. I’ve listened to this one probably five times in the last week or so.